Maria was the firstborn child of LaBate and his wife, Barbara, in 1985; they had a second child, Katrina, 2 1/2 years later. When she was 4, Maria “wavered quite a bit on the edge between being tentative and fearful,” but soon became confident. When the family went to see Billy Graham speak, she expressed an unprompted desire to “give her life to God”: “Did Maria fully understand what she was doing at that early age?” asks Labate. “Most likely, she did not. However, in some small way, God had obviously touched Maria’s heart, and she responded in kind.” Maria excelled in public school and homeschool settings, the author writes. After college, she became a teacher and later took an administrative hospital job during graduate school. Shortly before her 30th birthday, Maria’s health took a sudden turn, beginning with an excruciating headache; on Christmas Day, she was rushed to the emergency room. After more than two weeks, doctors determined that she had undetected breast cancer that had spread to her brain. She was transferred to a hospice facility, where she died surrounded by her family less than a month after first entering the hospital. LaBate incorporates journal entries, school essays, eulogies, and social media posts to flesh out his account of Maria, and effectively gives readers a clear sense of her personality. The book’s early sections are very matter-of-fact in tone, often at the expense of description, and they frequently focus on logistical aspects of family life. However, in the book’s later sections, LaBate affectingly grapples with difficult topics, as when he tells of praying for a miracle that would heal Maria, while also trying to accept the fact that “God might not give us a miracle.” Throughout, he writes about his daughter with heart-wrenching vulnerability, particularly in a poem he wrote in Maria’s infancy: “I’d give up all possessions, / All money, luck, and charms / To experience this moment / With you sleeping in my arms.”
